LONDON, Aug 29: The PML-N central executive committee which met here on Wednesday with former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in chair has decided that the party’s exiled leaders would return home on September 8, but postponed till Thursday the finalisation of the city where they would land.
“It would be Lahore or Islamabad, Karachi and Peshawar are out,” said a source.
The source said the two brothers would go back home together, “the speculation that Shahbaz would go first to test the waters is just that.”
PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif who talked to the media midway through the CEC meeting said the decision on when to go and where to land would be finalised and announced on Thursday afternoon.
Answering a question, he said the CEC had reiterated that Gen Musharraf was not acceptable to the party, whether in uniform or without it.
However, the questions whether Nawaz Sharif will be arrested on his arrival and whether he is still under some kind of a moral pressure from Saudi Arabia not to return home until he completes the 10-year ban are still doing the round looking for answers.
Pakistani legal experts said that Nawaz would surely be provided immediate relief by the courts if attempts were made to harass him with arrests on his return. “The courts may even issue an omnibus bail before arrest.”
Some people close to the Sharif brothers said if there was any doubt in the minds of the Sharif family that the Saudi royal family would not like Nawaz to break the 10-year ban, the family would never have gone to the courts seeking relief.
“And I am sure the Sharifs and the Saudi royal family are close enough for the former to get the latter’s mind before they went to court,” said another source.
He added: “Remember King Abdullah’s response when the Bangladesh government wanted to send former BD prime minister Khalida Zia to Saudi Arabia a la Musharraf style? The king told the BD government not to send her if she is being exiled.”
